1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rotary electric machine, and particularly to a stator lead-wire arrangement of an AC generator for a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Both star-connected phase-windings and delta-connected phase-windings are known as typical phase-windings of an AC generator. One lead-end of each of star-connected phase-windings is gathered at a suitable position, and the other lead-end thereof is connected to an outside electric load. On the other hand, both lead-ends of each delta-connected phase-windings are connected to form a triangle having three joints, which are connected to an outside electric load.
The above-described connection between different phase-windings is located at coil-end groups formed at opposite ends of a stator core. The lead-end of each phase-winding extends along the ridge of the coil-end groups to the lead-ends of other phase-windings. These lead-ends are bound by threads to the coil-end groups to prevent the lead-ends from contacting with a rotor or a housing, as disclosed in JP-A-2-214445. It is also known that a portion of the lead-ends is inserted into stator's slots having additional conductor members to shorten the threads or reduce the number of threads to zero.
In the stator disclosed in JP-A-2-214445, the thread binding takes considerable work. Such thread binding work may hurt insulation coatings of the windings, resulting in an insulation problem.
It is also difficult to insert such lead-ends in some of the slots because of recent high power structure of the stator that has a high space factor of the winding.